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[Jai Dee]

More health centers expanded to alleviate crowding in provincial hospitals

Minster of Health Dr Mongkol Na Songkhla (มงคล ณ สงขลา) revealed that his ministry is working to develop health services in communities throughout the nation inline with a ministry policy to better facilitate the needs of citizens. The ministry is aiming to allow for citizens to have faster and more efficient health services available to them.

The ministry is planning to circulate doctors and nurses through local health centers from major hospitals to increase the potential of community health establishments. It will also seek to provide more specialized medical services such as gynecologists and pediatricians at the local level.

Doctor Mongkol stated that a survey has shown that a common problem of provincial hospitals is overcrowding. The survey showed that 80 percent of patients in hospitals were suffering from very minor ailments that should be treatable in local health centers, such as headaches and fevers. The new policies will aim to alleviate crowding in hospitals by allowing for citizens to receive treatment closer to home.  

Source: Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 22 January 2008

[Martin]

"...citizens to receive treatment closer to home. "

This is exactly what is needed in the development of the sustainable economy.

Less-and-less oil available for import/rising-and-rising oil prices means that travel will get more expensive and less-available to many, even when they are sick.

Getting treatment for all the most common health problems to within walking-distance of homes is the ideal to aim at.

For those who can't walk to the clinic, bring back the District Nurses of my boyhood on their bikes. (Even though some of them, whilst limiting the spread of germs, were right spreaders of all the local gossip.)